Homily

This is the homily delivered by Fr. Austin Fleming at the funeral mass for Aidan McHale Sierra, Holy Family Parish Church in Concord MA, August 15, 2017:

Since last week I’ve been reflecting on what I might preach this morning.
And I’ve been thinking about to whom I would address my homily:
to Ellen and Mike, Aidan’s loving mother and father?
to Isabel, Aidan’s doting big sister?
perhaps to Aidan’s young friends and their families?
Everyone here today loves Aidan, but each of us in our own way,
To whom might I speak, then — without leaving anyone out?
Well, I decided to resolve that dilemma
by preaching to the one person we all would love to talk to today.
I want to speak to Aidan —
and so I’ve written him a letter which I want to share with you.

Dear Aidan,
You’ve left a lot of people behind,
people who love you — the very people whose love you knew so well.
But, oh my, Aidan: you’ve left us with a lot of questions:
hard questions, painful questions, mysterious questions,
questions begging for answers,
for answers we don’t have.
Perhaps you had questions wanting for answers, too, Aidan.
Of course you did: you were 12 just going on 13
and that’s a time for a lot of big and hard questions.

But whatever your questions might have been,
I trust you never questioned how much you were loved:
your parents' love for you, your sister’s love for you,
your grandmother’s love
and the love of so many family,
friends and neighbors.

We certainly didn’t question your love for us, Aidan:
a love that shone and glowed in your eyes, in your smile,
in your spirit and in your caring, in your generous giving,
in your hope to be part of the cure for cancer
to relieve the suffering of others;
and in your plans to make a difference in the lives of the homeless
when you grew up.

In fact, that’s what makes this morning so hard, Aidan.
So much love, so much life, so much spirit — in you:
the people who love you just don’t want to let you go of you,
they don’t know how to let go of you…

You may be gone from our arms, Aidan
but you’re not gone from our hearts
— but our hearts ache as we hope and trust and pray
that you’re in God’s arms now
because if you’re no longer in the arms of those who loved you
since you were born 13 years ago,
then we pray you’re in the arms of the One who has loved you
since before all time began.
That’s what we believe, Aidan, but the truth is,
it’s kind of hard to believe this morning:
that’s how much loosing you has shaken us
to the core of who we are.

So we’re here this morning
with at least a hundred unanswered questions,
with tears that won’t stop,
with an emptiness deeper than any we ever imagined,
with memories reminding us of how much we loved you
— and with a prayer.

You’ve left us holding on to a prayer, Aidan,
a prayer that you are safe in God’s arms
and that one day we’ll see you again and enjoy your love
when the mercy of God gathers us all together
in the kingdom of heaven.

The mercy of God, Aidan…
You know, losing you might lead some of us
to question the mercy of God.
How could a merciful God allow you to be gone from our embrace?
How could a merciful God allow us to know so much loss, such pain?
Losing you might lead some of us to question who God is,
how God works, even if there is a God.

So, as we pray for you, Aidan, we pray for ourselves, too.
We pray that the peace we hope for you
might also be the peace we find in grieving you -
and that’s nothing more and nothing less — than the very peace of God.

We need God this morning, Aidan.
We need God to gently touch the wound of losing you
and to heal our hurt, our grief, our anger and our brokenness.
We need God to give us strength where our faith is weak.
We need God to help us in the helplessness we feel.
We need God to fill the deep emptiness in our hearts.
We need God to give us hope
to help us make our way through these difficult days.
We need God to be with any young people
whose questions and confusion burden their minds and hearts.
And we need God to bring us together to love and support each other
because none of us is meant to go through this life,
or to bear life’s burdens, alone.

Right now, Aidan, your family and your friends are very sad.
We’re sad, not because we’ve forgotten the joy you were in our lives -
we’re sad precisely because we so keenly remember
the joy you brought us
and it’s hard for us to imagine living without you.
So we have to make sure that we treasure the joy you were for us
the joy you are for us,
and hold that joy close — even if it hurts to
do that today.
We need to hold as close as we can
the joy of who you were and who you are in our lives
because that joy was God’s gift to us,
all wrapped up in your beautiful person.

Well, Aidan, I don’t know the zip code for eternal life
so I can’t mail this letter to you.
But more than a letter, it’s my prayer for you
and for everyone who’s here this morning
and I know that God reads, very carefully,
the letters we write in our hearts.
So I trust that you, in God’s arms, Aidan
you know what I have written.

We’re gathered around the altar at Holy Family Parish, Aidan,
a place where you prayed and received Communion.
We believe that this is the Lord’s Table
and that here, Jesus gives us the gift of himself
in the sacrament of the Eucharist.
What we share at this altar is only a taste and a sip
of the banquet God has prepared for us in heaven.

We’re praying for you, Aidan, that God welcome you
to the table of God’s children in heaven.

Be at peace, Aidan,
and because we hope and trust and pray
that you are in God’s arms already,
please pray for us, that we might find the healing peace of God
in our hearts, too.

In God’s love, Aidan,
Fr. Fleming